To check the MD5 signature for the ISO download, using Mac Terminal (not covered in Maté manual); copy/paste the following text into a Terminal window, before pressing the enter/return key, to output the MD5 code. The text assumes the ISO file is on your desktop. Change ‘filename.iso’ to the correct filename e.g. ‘linuxmint-14.1-mate-dvd-64bit.iso’

cd ~/Desktop openssl md5 filename.iso

I may have kept Maté (I prefer this spelling) alongside OSX, but for partition/installation, boot selector and Bluetooth issues. I tested (and deleted) rEFInd (I prefer the ⌥ (alt) keyboard start up). Both methods have an issue with OSX needing to boot up after each Linux run. Life is to short for this, even without a Bluetooth hunt each time. The PIN number (you may need it) to link the Apple trackpad, it is ‘0000’. Luckily for me, I had a USB mouse! The instal, ‘alongside OSX option’ is not well covered in the Maté manual. I had been expecting to follow the same procedure that I had used for installing Ubuntu 12.10 and I prepared a partition in OSX, from which to make the linux-swap partition, with the remainder set to ext4, using GParted (on Maté live DVD). It seems without the ext4 partition the ‘instal alongside OSX’ option isn’t an option. Also, I expected to make the grub_bios, / (root), and /home partitions from the ext4 tranche, using the Maté installer. In the event this didn’t seem possible either, so I took a few step backwards and tried the Maté ‘instal alongside OSX’ option. This (in my view) made a pig’s ear of the Mac hard-drive partition table. Removing Maté and restoring the table was another headache.

I would probably run Maté as a stand alone OS (when I am ready to replace OSX) but not alongside it. I run OSX v10.6.8 on a 2.8 GHz Core i5 27” iMac with 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5750 card, a 1 TB hard drive, and 4 GB of RAM.